River Plate Steals the Glory

The historically gritty rivalry between River Plate and Boca Juniors is considered to be the most passionate, and dangerous, rivalry in all of soccer, maybe even in all of sports. It goes down all the way to the begin of time, this rivalry is not shy to scandals. The most disastrous occasion occurred on June 23, 1968, in El Monumental (River Plate’s home field). It began after a match between the two mega-rivals, 71 fans were killed in a crush at gate 12, with 150 fans left injured. The tragedy was the worst football related incident in the history of Argentine football. The majority of the dead were young adults. The average age of the victims was 19. There is a correlation with chauvinistic passion and violence amongst sports fans, and to no surprise, it occurred again this year. The first match of El Superclásico, and the finals of Copa Libertadores, was played at La Bombonera where the two rivals tied 2-2. Then the second-leg of the final was to be played at El Monumental, but the game never began. River Plate fans threw stones, bottles, flares, and even pepper gas. One Boca player got glass in his eye due to the bus window breaking from a projectile. The game was not played. The uncivilized fans were caught and arrested. The match was eventually ruled to be too unsafe to be played in Argentina, so the venue that was chosen was the Santiago Bernabéu in Madrid, Real Madrid’s home venue. River Plate would then go on to win the match 3-1, winning the Copa Libertadores with a 5-3 aggregate. River Plate chalks off another win for Argentina’s most historic rivalry.